Mexico

2012

The global rate of unpunished murders remains stubbornly high at just below 90 percent. Senior officials in the most dangerous countries are finally acknowledging the problem -- the first step in what will be a long, hard battle. By Elisabeth Witchel

The danger of covering violent street protests has become a significant risk for journalists, alongside combat and targeted killings. Sexual assault, organized crime, and digital vulnerability are also hazards. The security industry is struggling to keep up. By Frank Smyth

The Mexican president promised to protect a besieged press corps with a federal protection program, a special prosecutor and new legislation making anti-press violence a federal crime. But Felipe Calderón Hinojosa has failed at nearly every turn. By Mike O'Connor

Criminal groups exerted extraordinary pressure on the press as they extended their control over virtually every sector of society. Journalists were killed or disappeared, media outlets were bombed and threatened. Pervasive self-censorship was a devastating consequence of this environment. In an information vacuum, journalists and citizens increasingly used social media to inform their communities. The murder of a Nuevo Laredo reporter was the first case documented by CPJ worldwide in which a person was killed in direct relation to reporting done on social media. At least three journalists were granted political asylum in the United States and Canada, and several others sought refuge in other countries. Several major news organizations agreed on a professional code in which they set protocols for journalists at risk and pledged not to be propaganda tools for criminals. But President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's administration failed to implement effective reforms. Despite efforts to rejuvenate the office of the special prosecutor for crimes against free expression, anti-press violence went virtually unpunished. The government's new journalist-protection program was widely seen as ineffective. And while the Chamber of Deputies passed a bill to federalize anti-press crimes, the legislation remained pending in late year.

Tags:

The leading American author Russell Banks
set the tone on Sunday
as he stood among international writers and their local colleagues in Mexico
City: "A nation's journalists and writers, like its poets and story-tellers,
are the eyes, ears, and mouths of the people. When journalists cannot freely
speak of what they see and hear of the reality that surrounds them, the people
cannot see, hear, or speak it either." Banks is among the leaders of a
high-level PEN International
delegation that is meeting with top Mexican officials to pressure them to
improve law enforcement in the murders of journalists, and to change the law to
bring more cases under the federal government's jurisdiction.

For centuries, journalists have been willing to go to prison to protect their sources. Back in 1848, New
York Herald correspondent John Nugent spent a month in jail for refusing to tell a U.S. Senate committee
his source for a leak exposing the secret approval of a treaty with Mexico. In
a digital age, however, journalists need more than steadfast conviction to keep
themselves and their sources safe. Government intelligence agencies, terrorist
groups, and criminal syndicates are using electronic surveillance to learn what
journalists are doing and who their sources are. It seems many journalists are not keeping
pace.